Your input has been invaluable during the first cycle of NursingCAS. Please complete the Participating School Survey by September 5, 2011.

There has been a great response so far from the Applicant Survey. Over 800 applicants have responded. Please feel free to distribute this survey to your applicants as well. If you have surveyed your applicants individually and would like to share those results with NursingCAS or other participating schools please let us know.

In addition, we plan to survey schools who are not yet participating. If you would like to share this survey with your colleagues at other institutions who have not yet joined NursingCAS, please feel free to do so.

Announcements

Monthly Newsletter

NursingCAS will distribute a monthly newsletter that will keep you updated and informed. You can look for this newsletter in your inbox around the 15th of each month. View last month's edition.

Program Pages

NursingCAS would like to start publishing program information pages on www.nursingcas.org that an applicant can review to obtain information regarding your nursing program's supplemental requirements, pre-requisites, and other details. This will be structured similar to what other centralized application services provide for its applicants. View an example here. Stay tuned for more information and let us know if you have any suggestions.

Do you have any other suggestions on how www.nursingcas.org could be improved? Please let us know.

Scholarship Opportunity

There is a scholarship opportunity that NursingCAS applicants can apply to for $5,000, view more details here.

NursingCAS is now on Facebook, we will use this as an additional outlet to communicate with prospective students and applicants.

NursingCAS Presentations

Are you part of a nursing education consortium, a nursing dean’s group or similar organization? If so, would your group be interested in learning more about NursingCAS? Please contact us and we would appreciate the opportunity to present to your group.

If the old application appearswhen you visithttps://portal.nursingcas.organd you are unable to click on the "Create New Account" button, you must refresh your browser. If that doesn't work then visitwww.nursingcas.organd refresh your browser and click on "Apply Here".

Thank you again for your support and feedback during cycle 1, it helped us to shape the application. Please take time to complete the Participating School Survey by September 5, 2011 so we can use your feedback in making decisions regarding the application and improving the service.

Please note the following NursingCAS application enhancements have been added.We recommend you create a test account to log into the application to view these enhancements. For directions on how to create a test account see the next news item, "Review your School Listing on NursingCAS":

Continuous Academic Update: Applicants will have the ability to send updated transcripts and have their GPAs recalculated by the CAS verification team.

Re-Applicant Feature: Complete and verified applicants for the 2010-11 cycle will have the ability to carry over their application data and official transcripts into the 2011-12 cycle.

In Progress Applicant View: Nursing programs will have the ability to view contact and designation information for applicants (who authorize release of this information) before they e-submit their application.

Undelivered Applicants: Users will be able to see basic contact information for applicants that have been undelivered by NursingCAS.

Résumé/CV Upload: Applicants will have the ability to upload one résumé/CV to the application.

School Specific Personal Statement: Applicants will have the ability to tailor their personal statement to school specific designations.

Additional Information: Generic field added that will allow applicants to enter in state or school specific identification numbers.

Reference Request Comments: Ability for applicants to enter in comments to be sent to reference writers.

Application PDF Update: The addition of track names to the Applied Programs section on the full application PDF.

New Scanning System: An enhanced document scanning system has been implemented and will improve the processing time and image quality of all processed documents. In comparison with the previous scanning system, it processed on average 10,000 documents per week (7 days) on 7 work stations. The new system processes on average 10,000 documents every 3 days on 2 work stations.

A number of enhancements have been implemented for WebAdMIT, beginning on August 31.Please note the updates for WebAdMIT need to be spread out from the NursingCAS Application updates in order to maintain the integrity of the system:

Settings Transfer: When you first log into WebAdMIT for cycle 2, users with the “Configure Software” right will have the ability to pull their users, local statuses, custom fields, email templates, email addresses and assignment types forward from the previous cycle. Please note, for security reasons, all users that are transferred in this manner will be made “inactive” and will need to be activated before they can access the system.

Prerequisite GPAs: For ease of use, Prerequisite GPA calculations have been split apart from Requirements, allowing users to manage each of these items separately.

Additional Rights: “Add Notes” has been added as a new right for users, which allows program directors to give users the ability to make notes on applicant files without giving them the ability to mark requirements or test results as complete.

Assignments: WebAdMIT has expanded the functionality available in the “Assignments” module. Reviewers can now score and comment on the applicants that they review.

Interviewing Applicants: WebAdMIT now offers the ability to track interview dates, times, locations, and interviewers. Interviewers have the ability to score and comment on applicants. To set up interviews, navigate to “Interviews” under the “Management” menu.

Custom Fields: Users now have the ability to change the sequence in which their custom fields are displayed.

Configuring WebAdMIT by Program: For sites with more than one program, Prerequisite GPAs, Local GPAs, Local Statuses, Requirements, Email Settings, and Email Addresses can now be set on a per-program basis.

Search Assignments: A new search tool that allows users to search review assignments has been added under the “Applicants” menu.

Additional On-Screen Help: All configuration screens in WebAdMIT now offer on-screen tips. These helpful hints are at viewable on the right hand side of each window. In addition, a number of panels on the dashboard and search screen offer explanatory hover text.

Education Panel: All applicants now have an “Education Panel” available that allows them to see an applicant’s undergraduate and graduate schools attended in a single location.

Coursework Report: Users can now export detailed coursework from a list of applicants as a .CSV file. This file can either be reviewed in Microsoft Excel or may be able to be used with other university systems.

Applicant Scoring: Users can assign point values to an applicant’s academic performance.These point values can be combined with review and interview scores to rate each applicant numerically.

Update Log: The system will provide a section by section listing of changes made in the applicant portal (such as new coursework, the arrival of letters of recommendation, etc) for each applicant.

Applicant Pool Reports: A series of standardized, applicant pool reports are now available in the “Reports Manager” allowing schools to see a snapshot of their school’s applicant pool.

Review Your School Listing on NursingCAS & Check Your Deadlines

If your school is currently live on the NursingCAS application portal, it is very important that you create a test account and application in order to review your school’s listing. Most likely your program application deadlines have been updated and we want to ensure the deadlines listed are accurate and should be live. Contact Caroline Allen, NursingCAS Manager, at 202-463-6930 X258 or callen@aacn.nche.edu to make any changes.

You Must Create a New Test Account

Please note you must create a new test account, even if you have a test account for Cycle 1. To create a new test account visit the applicant portal, https://portal.nursingcas.org and click on "Create Account". Then in the "First Name" field, put your name followed by the word test, for example "CarolineTEST". This is important so we can separate out test applicants from actual applicants. If your school has both undergraduate and graduate programs listed please create two separate test accounts, one for undergraduate and one for graduate. To create an undergraduate test account, choose "Yes" to the question, "Are you currently a high school student". To create a graduate test account, choose "No" to the question, "Are you currently a high school student". Please note that in order to create both an undergraduate and graduate test account you must use two different email addresses.

Once you are logged into your test account you will be directed to your application homepage:

Click on the last option "Designations" then click on "Add" to add new designations (see screenshot below). Then scroll down or search for your program and check to ensure the program and/or track names and the deadline(s) listed are accurate. If you find any errors please contact Caroline immediately via email or at 202-463-6930 X258 so we can fix the error.

You also need to check that your listing on the "Participating Nursing Programs" search feature is accurate. Are the links posted correct? Are the program types offered accurate? Please note that the search is filtered by "undergraduate" and "graduate" so keep that in mind when you are reviewing your listing. You may need to adjust the filter depending on which programs you have listed on NursingCAS in order to review your school's listing. See the screenshot below and for the "Program Filters" option choose either Undergraduate Only or Graduate Only.

By creating a test account this will also give you an opportunity to see the new application enhancements. We encourage all NursingCAS users and prospective NursingCAS users to create a test application. If you need help creating a test account or have any questions please contact Caroline.

If your school is not yet live on NursingCAS and you have not set a "go live" date yet please contact Caroline via email or at 202-463-6930 X258 for assistance and to initiate this process.

Do you need to update a link, add programs, change deadlines, or make any other updates? In addition, has there been any staff changes and do you need to add a new administrator for your school? If so, please let Caroline know.

WebAdMIT News

Training Webinars for Cycle 2

Many new features have been added to WebAdMIT for cycle 2 and we want to ensure that you are aware of and know how to use the new functionality so please register for a cycle 2 training Webinar:

Additionally, during these Webinar we will review the Report Manager function with you and how to access and use your NursingCAS Cycle 1 data reports.

Have you completed initial training with WebAdMIT? Or do you want additional training for current or new staff on WebAdMIT? If so, please email or call the WebAdMIT Support team to schedule training sessions at webadmitsupport@academicsoftwareplus.com or 716.636.7777.

CAS-ERP Data Integration Forum Established

A CAS-ERP Data Integration Forum has been developed, to support the IT staff at your institution. The forum serves as a hub of information for institution IT departments as well as a platform for CAS to share information and to discuss data integration related matters. The forum currently has six categories as follows:

Each category is moderated by a member (or members) of the Advisory Committee who are available to answer questions and help your institution access, integrate, and sort CAS data.

The forum currently has a number of important sections and functions that may be of interest to you:

Documents Section:

Minutes from the most recent Data Integration Committee Meeting

Data Dictionaries from each of the CAS for downloading

CAS Launch Date Schedules

Master College Code List

Calendar Section: The calendar lists all of the CAS launch dates

New Topic Function: As a registered user of the forum, you are encouraged to start new discussion topics within each of the categories. New posts are automatically forwarded to the moderator of the category to notify them of your post.

We look forward to having you join us on the forum, and if you have any questions about logging in, or registering, please do not hesitate to contact Jérôme Giudicelli at jgiudicelli@liaison-intl.com.

New Data Dictionary Available

The WebAdMIT Draft Custom Export Layout for NursingCAS is now available for the 2011-2012 application cycle. This document describes all of the fields available for export from WebAdMIT in NursingCAS.

When WebAdMIT is made available on August 31, 2011 for the 2011-2012 NursingCAS application cycle, an email will be sent to the primary contact for your program containing the new URL and login instructions.

If you have any questions about the Custom Export Layout or WebAdMIT, please contact the WebAdMIT Support team at 716.636.7777, option 7 or via email.

In addition, a new WebAdMIT User Guide will be available at the end of August. For now you can access the WebAdMIT Guide here. The link to log into the WebAdMIT portal will also be new for cycle 2 and once both of these items are available they will be be posted on http://www.aacn.nche.edu/CAS. Please note in WebAdMIT, you will be able to access applicant data from cycle 1 and the current cycle.